


I'll Be Home With You

by sysrae



Series: Healing Hands [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dean Smith Verse, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Office, Dinner and drinks, Fluff and Angst, Loneliness, M/M, Masseuse Castiel, Meet-Cute, Pre-Slash, Tattooed Castiel, Touch-Starved, though that's more a tag for the series than this fic, travelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-15 15:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4612683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysrae/pseuds/sysrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Castiel Novak, proprietor of Angelic Massage, finds himself taking the touch-starved Dean Smith to dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Be Home With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [relucant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/relucant/gifts).



Castiel Novak is, as his next-eldest brother once famously put it, a human tumbleweed. He's always been bad at staying still, whether physically or in a more metaphoric sense, and as such, his decision to open _Angelic Massage_ was – and, truthfully, still is – not just a departure from form, but a personal risk. Four months in, and he still wakes up surprised by his own happiness, by his goddamn _commercial success_ , of all things. In the moments when he tries to rationalise it – which is not so much for the benefit of Cas-Now, but to appease the lurking spectre of Cas-Then, who looks on any sort of permanency as a disease of the mind, like voting Republican – he thinks it's because he's helping people, which is like a type of spiritual journey, and therefore a sap to his wanderlust. In more honest moments, however, when he's on the cusp of sleep or two hits into a really good joint, he can admit the actual truth: that the kind of life he wants to build at thirty-four won't fit in the backpack he thought would house his wordly possessions forever at twenty-one.

It's a melancholy realisation, which is why he tries to minimise his conscious awareness of ever having had it. But now, as he walks the familiar path to Black Smoke alongside Dean Smith – their hands just barely brushing, a constant reminder of the other man's need for touch – it rears up again with a vengeance. Everything Dean's said about his life – his thankless job, his lack of meaningful relationships, his complicated family history – screams to Cas that here is a man who can barely acknowledge his own misery, let alone alleviate it. Dean needs to change his life, but what kind of hypocrite would Castiel be to tell him so, when he still starts each day by falsely reassuring himself that he hasn't changed at all?

'Thanks for this,' Dean says, his soft voice jerking Castiel out of his reverie. His cheeks are pink, and not just because they're walking into a cool breeze.

'It's my pleasure,' says Cas – and _god,_ is it ever. Technically, Dean is both his client and, far more importantly, emotionally vulnerable. Castiel should not want to lay hands on him in anything other than the kindest, most strictly professional sense. But _oh_ , does he want to lay hands on him, and more than hands: it's a rare masseuse who can resist perfect musculature, and even without it, Dean has what his brother would call a jawline to write home about and eyes right out of a fairy tale. He's obscenely, stunningly beautiful, desperate in every sense to be touched, and Cas –

Cas has believed in quite a number of hells through the years, and even having finally settled on atheism, or at least a sort of indifferent agnosticism, he feels momentarily certain he's headed for all of them. _Absence of gods, give me strength,_ he thinks, and stoically desists from staring at Dean's mouth.

'I mean it, man,' says Dean, oblivious to Cas's inner turmoil. 'I – I really freaked out before, and you just... I mean, I'm honestly surprised you didn't throw me straight out on my ass. Most people would've.'

Cas's heart twists a little at that. 'Dean, you were clearly distressed. It was the least I could do.' He takes a breath, glancing sideways at his companion, and finds himself confronted by an unexpected truth. 'And I... I've been lonely, too, I think.'

Dean looks startled. 'You?'

'Me,' says Cas, offering him a wry smile. More hesitantly, he adds, 'It's been years since I've stayed in the same place long enough for it to be an issue. Travelling, you meet new people all the time – it doesn't matter if you don't make deep connections, because you're always going to move on anyway. But ever since I opened the parlour – ever since I moved here, really – I haven't.... I mean, I talk to my customers, but friends, partners... I don't know how to go about those sorts of relationships. I've never been good at small talk or conventional social gatherings, and now that part of me wants to try, I feel like an old dog learning new tricks. Or failing to learn them, anyway.'

Shyly, Dean bumps their shoulders together. 'Well, for what it's worth, I think you're doing just fine.'

Cas smiles at him, unaccountably warmed by the vote of confidence, and when Dean smiles back, he almost trips over the pavement. Seeing Dean Smith smile is like staring into a beacon: it's just that blinding, and all Cas wants to do is follow the light.

 

*

 

Black Smoke is never too crowded, even on a Friday night; it's one of the things Cas likes about the place, besides the impeccable menu. Barely a minute after they've claimed a corner booth, his regular waitress, Meg, swings by to take their orders. Cas gets a bacon and blue cheese burger and a bottle of his favourite Pilsner, while Dean, after a moment's hesitation, orders a beef burger with the lot, plus a Jack and Coke. Meg grins approval at both of them, giving Cas a playful bop on the head with his reclaimed menu as she steps away.

'Careful, Clarence,' she says, winking slyly in Dean's direction. 'If you strike out with him, I'm minded to take a shot.'

'Your aim is lousy,' Cas quips back, but he flushes all the same.

Meg laughs and saunters off, leaving Dean to raise an eyebrow at her departure.

'You know her, I'm guessing?'

'A little,' says Cas, shrugging. 'I come here a bit, and we chat sometimes, but that's all.'

'Seems to me,' says Dean, 'that you're better at making friends than you think.'

Cas snorts. 'Meg's not a friend.'

'Maybe not,' Dean says, 'but with a little work, I'm betting she could be.'

'Maybe,' Cas concedes, and at Dean's raised eyebrow, he shrugs and sighs. 'It's nothing against Meg, personally. But meeting people in bars, it's not... it's superficial. Nobody sensible goes to bars to make real friends, and chatting up the local barstaff isn't how you fit into a new city, either, no matter how often you drink. It's what you do –' _what I used to do,_ he thinks, swallowing against the admission, '– when you want to escape the burden of having to learn a new place, not a sign that you already know it.'

Dean's lips twitch. 'Very deep,' he murmurs, not quite smiling. 'You should send that in to the Reader's Digest – they've got a page for people like you.'

'You,' says Cas, staring at him, brain doing a full 180 at the quote. 'You like Douglas Adams?'

'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, man. You know who _doesn't_ like that book? Soulless creeps, that's who.'

'Amen to that,' says Cas, amazement in his tone. He stares at Dean some more, and is on the brink of conjuring up an actual conversational topic when Meg returns with their drinks. He takes his Pilsner with a murmured thanks, unable to tear his eyes from Dean, and it's such a small thing to have in common with someone he's just met, but the thing about travelling –

'The thing about travelling,' says Cas, watching avidly as Dean sips his bourbon, 'is that, when you do it for long enough, you get used to everyone being the same in ways that don't matter and different in ones that do.'

'Elaborate on that,' says Dean.

Cas takes a pull of his beer. 'I mean that, from a transient perspective, everyone is either a local, which makes them the same as all other locals, or they're travelling, too, which is usually your only point of commonality, and not one that matters beyond being why you've met them. So difference, real difference, becomes a sort of game, as though you're presenting people with the least likely, most incongruous version of yourself up front, to try and compensate for the big dull commonality you share, if they're travelling too, or to make yourself seem more interesting than you really are, if they're local.'

'Big dull commonality, huh?' says Dean, raising an eyebrow. 'And what's that mean, when it's at home? Or not at home, sorry – _travelling_.' And he goddamn _winks_ at Cas, whose stomach curls with heat.

'It means,' says Cas, lipping the glass, 'that you both know you're running from something, or you wouldn't be there in the first place.'

'And what if you're just visiting relatives?'

Cas snorts. 'That's not _travelling_. It's being _in transit_. There's a difference. Travellers have journeys, not destinations.'

'Because you're all running from something?'

'Yeah,' says Cas, voice suddenly soft. 'Because we're all running from something.'

Dean looks at him, green-eyed and steady. 'You're here now, though,' he says. 'So does that mean you've stopped?'

The breath snares in Castiel's throat. 'I don't know,' he says, more undone by the question – or perhaps by the fact that Dean is the one to ask it – than he cares to admit. 'I... I lost momentum, I think. Lost my way, if I ever really had one. Everyone who runs, runs _from_ – you have to have a point of origin – but most of us don't think about _to,_ unless to assume it's the same as _away_. And I never... I never wanted to be somewhere. I just wanted to _be_ , and I thought that meant perpetual motion, like it's possible to violate the First Law of Thermodynamics if you just read enough Kerouac, but hearts don't work that way. They start craving new poets with less misogyny and more depth, they get lonely for all the friends you haven't made yet and never will, they wake you up at three AM to ask what home means, and you don't so much stop as _cease_ –'

He breaks off, pulse thumping as he blushes into his Pilsner, because this, this is why he was never good at staying in the first place – never good at depth; at truth; at people you know for longer than an hour. This isn't the way you're meant to talk, and even if you were, it's not how you ought to behave with new acquaintances, just coughing up maudlin thoughtpoems in lieu of real conversation, and Dean needs someone stable, someone who can teach him change instead of how to deny it –

'I ceased, I think,' says Dean – quietly, his eyes not leaving Castiel's. 'A long time ago. Or at least, I stopped without ever having started. Only reason I'm not running is, you can't run from yourself. I don't know how to, to –' he laughs, the sound heavy and fragile, cracking bright between them like a thunderclap, '– god, I don't know what I am any more.'

'But you're here, too,' says Castiel, mouth dry.

'I am,' says Dean. 'I am. We are.'

And he smiles again, as shyly as sun through rain.

 

*

 

This isn't professional. Castiel knows it, and doesn't care. He can't even blame the decision on alcohol – he only had the one Pilsner, just as Dean only had the one bourbon – and whatever he was thinking when he first extended the invitation to Black Smoke, he can honestly say he didn't mean for it to end up here. Or maybe he did, and he's just too blind to the shape of his own denial to have realised.

Or then again, maybe not.

 _If you still want the massage_ , he'd said, and Dean had nodded. _I live nearby_ , he'd said, and Dean had blushed, but hadn't hesitated, and now they're here, on Castiel's doorstep, some two hours of meaningful conversation and good food thrumming between them like a borrowed pulse or a piece of music, and o _h, Castiel, you're a bad, bad man, you're gonna go to the_ special _hell_ –

'You're not taking advantage of me,' Dean says, quiet and sudden.

Cas's hand freezes on the key, which is halfway turned in the lock. Heat rushes through him, and guilt, and hope. He glances at Dean, tongue fumbling for words that aren't there – reassurances, maybe, or possibly denials – and instead, Dean ducks his head, cheeks pinked by the wind and his own audacity, and says, 'I just, uh. This isn't... I mean, whatever this is, if it's just a massage, if it's something else –' his tongue darts out, wetting his lips, '– I just want to say, right now, that you're not taking advantage. I know how I was earlier, but it's not... this isn't me being needy, or easy, or cheap.' He sucks in a breath and looks at Cas. 'This is me wanting you.'

Castiel doesn't move quickly; the moment runs too slow for that, the press of atoms syrup-thick and sweet with possibility. He smiles, because how could he possibly _not_ , and leans in close to Dean, one palm on his shoulder, backing him up against the door. Dean's eyes spark; he shivers under Cas's touch, even through his layered clothes, gaze fixed firm on Cas's mouth as Castiel leans in and kisses him. He keeps it light, like swiping a pastry brush over a pie crust, and Dean makes a noise that's half a sigh and half a plea and _shudders_ with it, panting gently against Cas's lips as one hand reaches out and grips his hip.

'Oh, god,' Cas murmurs, smiling as their foreheads brush. 'Christ. That's just not _fair_.'

'What's not?'

'The way you sound.' Cas says, kissing his jaw. 'You're going to ruin me.'

Dean laughs, shaky and pleased. 'The feeling's mutual.'

It's not professional at all; it's fragile, wanting, tenuous – like travelling, or coming home, or maybe both at once.

Castiel Novak unlocks the door, and leads Dean Smith inside.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently there is no limit to how many times I'm willing to have fictional dorks bond over Douglas Adams. FIGHT ME.
> 
> Fic title from Hozier's In A Week.


End file.
